Top DOJ-FBI officials continued to work with Steele after being warned of conflicts

A top official at the Obama-era Department of Justice warned his superiors and the FBI that information in the anti-Trump dossier was not verified and came from a source, Christopher Steele, who was “desperate that Trump not be elected,” newly-revealed congressional testimony shows.

The FBI used the Steele dossier as the primary evidence to convince a judge to approve a wiretap on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.

Despite the warnings, officials continued to receive information from Steele not just through the 2016 election but well into the first year of the Trump administration, former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr testified.

Bruce Ohr, left, and Christopher Steele

Furthermore, in May 2017, after President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey, senior FBI officials met and decided to launch a probe into whether Trump was a Russian agent and to involve Steele.

Ohr’s closed-door testimony in August before the joint House Judiciary-Oversight task force was first reported this week by The Epoch Times.

Andrew McCabe, now acting director, “sought to re-engage with former Mi6 spy” Steele, according to the report.

Ohr reached out to Steele, who messaged, “Talked with my wife; I’m in.”

“Thanks. We’ll let them know and we will follow up,” Ohr said.

Ohr also said he had informed the FBI beforehand that Steele was linked to the Clinton campaign.

“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr testified he told the FBI.

Ohr testified that, in August 2016, he had relayed Steele’s information to then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and his counsel Lisa Page. Days earlier, the FBI launched an investigation into the Trump campaign on alleged “collusion” with Russia.

The FBI’s first warrant application in October 2016, and subsequent ones, made no mention of the dossier’s Democratic Party roots.

“In conversations with various members, Ohr claimed he repeatedly made it clear to the FBI that the (Steele) information was not verified, risked bias, and had been obtained under political circumstances,” The Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway noted.

Documents discovered by the former Republican majority of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence show the FBI graded the credibility of Steele’s dossier as low.

The FBI fired Steele, after agreeing to pay him $50,000, because he went to Mother Jones magazine and disclosed his unverified findings. An FBI document shows Steele was “desperate” to sink the candidacy of President Donald Trump.

Steele in 2017 continued to be a Democratic-financed investigator. Another FBI document showed that Penn Quarter Group, founded by Daniel Jones, an ex-senior staffer to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, received $50 million from liberal donors to investigate Trump. Jones hired Steele as well as Steele’s handler, Fusion GPS.

Democrats on the House intel committee, led by Rep. Adam Schiff of California, had insisted the Republican majority overstated Ohr’s role. They claimed Steele’s conversations with the FBI “occurred weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”

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